Gastrospotting: Rockridge's New Chocolate Emporium

“When I started as a buyer eight years ago, I had to get the majority of my inventory from overseas,” David Salowich recalls. “Now I can get the world’s best chocolate within our own borders.”

The chocolate buyer for the East Bay’s Bittersweet Café chainlet is collaborating with its owners to turn their Rockridge location into a showcase of the American craft chocolate industry. The products of bean-to-bar luminaries like Patric, Rogue, Dick Taylor, Dandelion, and Amano will be on display, as will a range of drinking chocolates.

But the shop, which will continue to operate under the Bittersweet name, isn’t all sweet nothings. “We’re going to try to bring it home to people that chocolate is actually a food, an agricultural product,” says Salowich, who began his career working for Scharffen Berger. “What I hope to do is show them what I’ve seen in the whole trajectory of the movement, to tell the story of American chocolate making.” 5427 College Ave. (at Kales Ave.), Oakland, 510-654-7159